Oceania, or the constellation of Pacific islands, has occupied a special
place in the European imagination ever since its discovery by early
Spanish explorers and the voyages of Captain Cook. Subsequently the
islands became an important laboratory for natural scientists, botanists
and anthropologists, were exploited as sources of imperial wealth,
even functioning as hellish prisons and theatres of war. This was
long before the notion of the tropical island was transformed into
the modern image of an ideal tourist paradise.

Paradoxically, despite comprising a third of the earth's surface,
the Pacific is comparatively little written about by serious travel
writers. The easy Western geographical construct of Melanesia, Micronesia
and Polynesia conceals one of the most culturally diverse regions
on earth. Tiny islands are difficult of access and expensive to travel
to, which has largely preserved many of them from the corrosive Western
influences that now reach overland even into 'remote' regions of Patagonia,
Laos or the High Pamir.

History has provided me with many darkly humorous characters, the
idyllic landscape and richly fascinating cultures with vivid descriptions
in my pursuit of the hazardous romance of tropical islands. I hope
you will enjoy travelling with me to some of the last places on earth
to be explored by Europeans and learn how the old certainties of island
life, myth and magic are slowly changing and being replaced by a new
order.